Incredible. This would be the equivalent of appointing the sitting Vice President of Exxon Mobil to an EPA advisory committee, but Ed Smith has now been appointed to the disastrous U.S. Election Assistance Commission's (EAC's) Technical Guidelines Development Committee as one of their new "Technical and Scientific Experts."

From the EAC's email announcement on Friday (posted in full at end of article):

Edwin B. Smith, III, vice president of compliance and certification at Dominion Voting Systems. Before joining Dominion Voting Systems, Mr. Smith was vice president of manufacturing, compliance, quality and certification at Sequoia Voting Systems. He also served as the operations manager at Hart InterCivic and the senior director of operations at K*TEC Electronics. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor of Science in engineering technology from Texas A&M.

So Smith went from voting machine company Hart Intercivic to voting machine company Sequoia Voting Systems and is now at voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, where he is a VP, selling e-voting systems to jurisdictions around the country that receive federal money doled out by the EAC. And now he'll also sit on an advisory board at the EAC helping to advise which one of those companies sees their systems certified for use in U.S. elections by the EAC. Just amazing.

But that's not even half the story of why this is just incredible, and another huge black eye for the EAC. (How many eyes do they have left to blacken at this point?) If you're not a long time reader of The BRAD BLOG reader, and don't recall who this Ed Smith is, read on. It's simply stultifying...

Smith is the guy who, after years of paying a crackpot contractor named Mike Gibbons to do this and that for Sequoia with loads of federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) tax-payer cash, assigned him to do an "independent" analysis of Sequoia's touch-screen machines after they failed in NJ's 2008 Super Tuesday election. That was just after Smith had sent a letter threatening two Princeton computer scientists with legal action "to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis," if they performed the actually independent analysis of the machines as they were tasked by NJ election officials to do. (Addtional outrage/irony shortly thereafter uncovered by The BRAD BLOG: Sequoia didn't even own the Intellectual Property rights to the machines in question. Rather, the IP rights were, and are still to our knowledge, owned by Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm tied to Hugo Chavez. Sequoia lied to both federal investigators and state election officials about that relationship.)

After The BRAD BLOG exposed who Smith's friend Mike Gibbons actually was --- a Sequoia insider, as well as a drunk and a philanderer with an obnoxious Facebook page seeking a "well endowed blonde nymphomaniac," only to change the page after we'd outed him to feature a photo of him and George Bush Sr. and a professed love of Jesus Christ instead --- Gibbons was fired. (He would be found dead a few months later, the actual cause of which we've never been able to ascertain.)

Smith was severely reprimanded at Sequoia for the embarrassing incident, and has now been rewarded by moving on to Dominion, which is in partnership with his old friends at Sequoia to supply the new, failed e-voting systems recently deployed, disasterously, for the first time in last November's election --- the one where the results of the NY-23 Special Election for U.S. House will now forever be in question. The Sequoia/Dominion contract to supply faulty, secret vote counting machines to NY (as recently tested and failed, with real voters in the very real NY-23 election) is worth some $20 million federal tax-payer dollars.

And now Smith's been been named to advise the EAC, the actual federal body tasked with overseeing, testing, and approving voting systems for federal approval --- the very body that is supposed to oversee the very scams that Smith attempts to pull off with his worthless, broken, easily hacked, often-failed, computerized secret vote-counting systems. And, in the case of the NY systems, they're being used even though they are neither federally nor state certified yet.

This isn't just the Fox in the Hen House. This is the Fox who has already devoured every Hen in the House, in the Hen House. With feathers in his mouth and a sub-machine gun in his hands.

The EAC is an absolute disgrace, and should long ago have been disbanded for one failure after another --- including the approval of virtually every e-voting system in use today, virtually every one of which has failed spectacularly, even as the EAC has refused to decertify any of them. Enough is enough.

* * *

The complete Friday press release from the EAC, announcing Smith's appointment, and others, follows in full below...

New Technical and Scientific Experts Appointed to EAC's Technical Guidelines Development Committee

WASHINGTON- The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) today announced the appointment of four new technical and scientific experts to its Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), which is charged under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) with assisting EAC in developing federal voluntary voting system guidelines that are used to test and certify voting systems.

The following new members were appointed jointly by EAC and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):

Steven M. Bellovin, professor of computer science at Columbia University. Dr. Bellovin's research focuses on networks and security. Before joining the Columbia faculty in 2005, he spent many years at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs Research, where he was an AT&T Fellow. He holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a master's and doctorate in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Diane Cordry Golden, program coordinator for the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs. Dr. Cordry Golden has 30 years' experience providing training and technical assistance on disability policy implementation and assistive/accessible technology service delivery to government and nonprofit organizations at the local, state and national level. She has a doctorate in special education administration with an emphasis in disability policy, a master's degree in audiology, and a bachelor's degree in speech-language pathology.

Douglas W. Jones, associate professor of computer science at University of Iowa. Mr. Jones served on the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems for 10 years, where he helped examine and approve voting systems before they were sold to the state's county governments. He testified at the U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearings in Tallahassee, Fla., on January 11, 2001, and was involved in reviewing the federal 2002 Voting System Standards.

Edwin B. Smith, III, vice president of compliance and certification at Dominion Voting Systems. Before joining Dominion Voting Systems, Mr. Smith was vice president of manufacturing, compliance, quality and certification at Sequoia Voting Systems. He also served as the operations manager at Hart InterCivic and the senior director of operations at K*TEC Electronics. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor of Science in engineering technology from Texas A&M.

"We welcome this distinguished group of experts to the committee," said EAC Commissioner Donetta Davidson, the designated federal official of the TGDC. "We've just concluded our first two-day meeting with our new members, and it was filled with spirited, thoughtful and productive exchanges. We are fortunate to have such a dedicated and knowledgeable group of professionals working with us on federal voting system guidelines."

HAVA established the TGDC to support the EAC by providing recommendations on voluntary standards and guidelines related to voting equipment and technologies. The TGDC's first task was to draft the third iteration of federal voting system standards, known as the voluntary voting system guidelines, which EAC issued in December 2005. The TGDC continues to work on future iterations and revisions to the guidelines for consideration by the EAC Standards Board and Board of Advisors, and for ultimate consideration and adoption by EAC.

HAVA requires that members of the TGDC be made up of representatives from the American National Standards Institute, the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Architectural and Transportation Barrier Compliance Board (commonly referred to as the Access Board), the EAC Standards Board and the EAC Board of Advisors.

These organizations nominate new members to serve on the TGDC. Recent appointments include Access Board member Phillip Jenkins, senior software engineer of the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center; NASED member Ann McGeehan, director of the elections division, State of Texas Office of the Secretary of State; and EAC Standards Board member Donald Palmer, director of elections, Florida Department of State.

Other members of the committee include Ron Gardner, director of field services, National Federation of the Blind; Linda Lamone, administrator of elections, Maryland State Board of Elections; Paul Miller, voting systems manager, State of Washington, Office of the Secretary of State; Helen Purcell, county recorder, Maricopa County, Arizona; Russ Ragsdale, city and county clerk, City and County of Broomfield, Colorado; and David Wagner, associate professor, EECS Department, University of California-Berkeley. Patrick Gallagher, director of NIST, chairs the committee.

For information on TGDC resolutions, meeting minutes and related information, visit vote.nist.gov. Information about EAC's voting system testing and certification process, including the federal 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, is available at www.eac.gov.

The EAC is an independent commission created by the Help America Vote Act. The EAC serves as a national clearinghouse and resource of information regarding election administration. It is charged with administering payments to states and developing guidance to meet HAVA requirements, adopting voluntary voting system guidelines, and accrediting voting system test laboratories and certifying voting equipment. It is also charged with developing and maintaining a national mail voter registration form. The three EAC commissioners are Gineen Beach, chair; Gracia Hillman, vice chair; and Donetta Davidson. There is one vacancy on the commission.

* * *

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I mean is intellectual analysis even necessary? What more can be added? So unbelievable, yet so perfectly typical of our whole e-voting universe, where up is down, black is white, and Hans Von Spazkowski our whatever is actually a human being who cares about civi rights.

I'm nearly 70 years old and a Vet and a politically active bleeding heart liberal progressive union member for about 50 years. Only since the inception of blogs like this on the Internet have we the average citizen been able to get the actual truth as it happens. Thank You !
Since "O" has been in office I have thought "we" finally have a President to represent the average person even though he was a member of the DLC while a senator ! The corporate military industrial complex must have put a note under his pillow the first night he spent in the White house reminding him of JFK and RFK ! The party crashers at the white house may have been another warning to him on how easy it is to put some one right next to him and his family ! Other than sheer greed what reasons for "O"'s decisions and policies on all of the issues we elected him for could there be ??? This is just another of his unbelievable insane decisions he and his administration have made ! Maybe we are all just whistling in the dark when we assume we live in a real democracy where we the people have a say ? All my life the corporate military industrial complex have been calling all of the shots. Can we save ourselves from ourselves before it's to late ??? Here in Nevada elected politicians and activists I have known for over 30 years just do not listen to any criticism of the dean heller sequoia gambling system we have turned over our entire election process to ! Just beyond all comprehension !

Doug Jones, while considered a "good guy" by many, didn't blow the whistle on any of the Diebold flaws found in about five minutes by 50-year-old ladies, a gun nut, a Finnish guy.

"Mr. Jones served on the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems for 10 years, where he helped examine and approve voting systems before they were sold to the state's county governments.

That's right. He was the examiner for the Diebold (then called Global Election Systems) stuff from the mid 1990s on. Yet you didn't read about the problems until Black Box Voting exposed them.

All these experts are tainted by their unwillingness to voice unpopular truths to the public. And I don't buy hiding behind a nondisclosure agreement as any excuse whatsoever.

Other than sheer greed what reasons for "O"'s decisions and policies on all of the issues we elected him for could there be ??? This is just another of his unbelievable insane decisions he and his administration have made !

To be fair, on this point at least, the decision to appoint Smith was the EAC commissioners. Currently there are 2 Rs (one of them the chair) and 1 D on the commission. Obama has yet to appoint the second D to fill the vacant spot.

Even with 2 Ds and 2Rs, however, the EAC has proven itself over and over again to be a miserable failure. In every respect.

Here in Nevada elected politicians and activists I have known for over 30 years just do not listen to any criticism of the dean heller sequoia gambling system we have turned over our entire election process to!

Please go out and buy Mark Crispin Miller's "Loser Take All" and get it to everyone in NV! In it, Michael Richardson, John Gideon and myself have an investigative expose on the illegal way in which Dean Heller "certified" those Sequoia machines in your state, blatantly lying to the public and blatantly violating the law. Nobody has done a damned thing about it, despite our nearly 6 months of investigation for that report, showing all of the above in no uncertain terms.

This makes me want to puke. The squirrel wheel just goes faster and faster, and I'm not sure where it will ever end. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and here I am, stuck in the middle with you (not you Brad, just some "you"). Like any circus or "magic act", if they can keep your eyes away from the real deal, they can convince many that they really can do magic and we really should "trust" them. Eeech! Please keep up the great exposure journalism you are doing, even when on the road.

MsKitty: While never having attended a "Tea Party", I would associate myself more with the TeaParty gang than probably most people on here. And yes - this DOES piss me off! I'll be writing my worthless Senator (both DNCites) and my equally worthless RNC congress dweeb later this evening to complain. Despite your (quite common) notions about non-Democrats, we (mostly) care just as much if not more about democracy and honest government. Remember: Bush never came close to getting all our votes - just the dumb ones.

Hope ypu will stay on this list. There are many here who tilt pretty much left but there are also many who have wanted to draw in people who are genuinely concerned for the Constitution and are appalled by what the neocons and now Obama have done...[Put me down as not progressive but radical in defense of the Constitution...took the oath in the USAF with service in the Southwest Pacific in WWII and in ARDC in Korean War and am quiet but furious...]

This is the kind of thing we can all do something about-we can send emails to Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow & Greg Palast to alert them to speak out. We can coss-post to aggregate news sites like OpEdNews (a very worthwhile site that's my 'other' news feed; though its traffic seems low, the range of articles is vast & the quality excellent), post our comments on HuffPost & DailyKos. This is OUR job people! Brad can't do it all himself. It's up to us to Digg these articles too. Did you know that we could create our own Digg community, thus increasing articles' relevance? Anyone wanna help me start this? (I'm just learning about Digg after Mr. Canfield suggested Digging his amazing article on Afghanistan & the war machine.) If I hear a yea, I'll post an email addy to the list to get it going. It's our country, and I want it BACK! Also, what activist organizations do you belong to-let them know that publicly funded elections & hand-counted paper ballots WILL remove the corporate deathgrip from our necks. In addition, as I've mentioned before: get your money out of the Banksters' hands. If you switch your accounts to local banks that invest sustainably, the those robber barons CAN'T use your money against you! This is the way to take the Empire down-stop donating to them their life's blood-money! Spread the word like the bumblebees of patriotism that you are! We can DO this-TOGETHER! To steal a phrase from a MASTER of the art of phrasemongering: YES WE CAN!!!

P.S. For those of you who are amused by tiny messages the Universal Jokester sometimes sends out-the security code for posting my comment was 1BBB1. Hmmm. Coincidence?! Random? Well, I don't care what anyone else thinks of this. Here's what I KNOW: 1'm a BumBleBee for the Constitution1. Sophia, in a strangely jolly mood these days. Could be end-of-the-world-as-we've-known-it psychosis, or just a random energyblast of solidarity with the brilliant change-artists that are US. We are the ones we've been waiting for. You know?!

It's not unbelievable at all if you assume that Obama is the true "black job" President, which I've been trying hard not to say outright at my site due to wanting to "give him another chance" as they say in the "forgiveness" blogs.

This is my final straw.

The only reason for this to happen is that those who make the decisions (way up above us in the clouds of glory, I guess) have decided that they don't care whether or not the public knows that from now on we will live and die according to Sequoia/Diebold vote counts.

It appears that our current President has adhered to the "foxes in charge of the hen house" policies of his predecessor. I don't know which is more disturbing --- a passel of Goldman Sachs insiders being placed in charge of the economy or e-voting scam artists in a position to insure the theft of future elections.

Perhaps someone brighter than I can weigh in on which is more disturbing.

well ernie i am in no way brighter than u but u bring up a good point,which is more disturbing,and there are many more things to be added to the "disturbing list" including the spineless dems letting joe l single handedly water down the best part of the new crappy healthcare reform bill in the senate by taking out the medicare buy in...i mean look at his " criminal activity" compared to siegleman...seigleman took money for a campaign to start a lottery to benefit education and then appointed a well qualified guy to head a board he had been appointed to 3 times before,,,and his conviction stands...yet joe l takes millions for his personal campaign ,is caught on tape backing something like a medicare buy in,then changes his mind in front of the whole world to please who??? it can only be his insurance company masters...and the fbi isnt interested...just like they are not interested in the the pay offs the rep nevada senator made to his mistresses family or the clearly illegal lobbying he set up for his former aid the mistresses husband....i could go on and on but what i would like to know is why we all can not seem to band together to collectively challenge these "foxes"(i do think vr's dif campaigns r worthwhile but how do we get them any real msm attention?)

when the ny 23 numbers came out i went out on a limb and spent a couple days on bbv trying bring attention to hayes research that showed 9-12 % of the ballots were not counted on the machines(in several precincts),i got 3 or 4 of the regs to comment but past that nothing,and the original data hayes refered to was nevr posted so the discussion just stopped,,,,but back to your original question,the neo cons must think the insiders being in charge of the hen house(fed reserve) is the most important because after comacst bought nbc,the morning meeting was taken off the air(at least in bloomington) and now that it is back it has been cut to an hour and dylan(who really railed against the bankers and wall street) is doing a lot more "entertainment" news...this appointment will nevr even hit the airwaves(msm)

Obama is not responsible for this decision directly. HAD he appointed a reasonable Democrat to the Commission, it's not even clear whether it would be a 2-2 vote, (or whether the current Democrat on EAC would vote with the R's), and how that would be broken if it WERE a 2-2.

However, it would be easy for Obama to make a public speech and CALL OUT THE ASSHOLE and ruin his life. If the President of the United States were to claim that you were totally unqualified for a position you had been given and that the Republicans who placed you there were nearly treasonous in their actions, it would make it hard for him to serve.

Whoops, sorry, I lost my mind for moment and fell into DREAMLAND, where Obama wasn't ruled by Rahm Emmanuel, but rather by an interest in preserving the Constitution. --- NEVER MIND.

Perhaps Obama can just END this Commission somehow?

I think the "powers that be" are realizing that with peer to peer and social networking and blogs, we might be close to the population actually FIGURING IT OUT and realizing how they are being screwed, and getting ready to vote out a lot of DINO's, centrists and Rethuglicans in favor of some liberal and progressive candidates, and that no amount of corporate-controlled media and spin could stop that drive. And, realizing that, they see that they must have total control over the ballot counting, as they will definitely NOT have control over the ballot voting.

Couple of years ago I went to see my rep Barney Frank to try to light a fire under his ass about the urgency of election reform. First thing I noticed was his lack of social skills. Had to wonder how someone that rude and dismissive could get as far as he has as a "servant of the people". And he's one of those really smart people(and he IS really smart, I'll give him that)who's so smart he even knows more than you(a concerned citizen who's been obsessing about and studying election integrity issues for years) about stuff he doesn't know shit about, like election integrity issues. I tried to direct him to Maxine Waters hoping they were tight and believing her to be better informed. He said he would talk to her though I see no indication that he ever did.

One of several maddeningly stupid things he said during this visit was in response to my complaint that the EAC was terrible and should be done away with. He said no, we shouldn't cuz soon we'll be in charge and then we'll get to put our people in. Uh huh. Uh Huh. Uh Huh. Uh huh.